Countering the United States in Vietnam } 245
tribesmen) working in cooperation with nonuniformed US clandestine
forces. While not entirely without effect, those indigenous forces were unable
to seal off Hanoi’s vital supply lines. The trails could easily have been blocked
by US ground forces. Such a move would have forced PAVN to attack fixed
US defensive positions, rather than having US forces trying to “find and fix”
PAVN in South Vietnam, usually at places and under circumstances decided
on by PAVN commanders. When the US “secret war” in Laos was discovered,
as it inevitably was, it was cast as a violation of the 1962 Geneva agreement,
contributing significantly to the international united front against the US ef-
fort in Vietnam. Nor did US forces invade the DRV or raid its coasts, or bomb
the DRV’s intricate dike system, on which its irrigated production of patty
rice depended.
The highly limited way in which the United States undertook to wage
its war against Hanoi was a major reason for Hanoi’s ultimate victory. The
self-limitation of American power allowed Hanoi to sustain a protracted war
of attrition with an immensely more powerful United States, enervating the
Johnson administration and a portion of the US public.^26
The reasons why US leaders chose to wage such a highly limited war were
complex. One reason, perhaps the major one, was that this approach would
allow the United States to avoid triggering direct Chinese entry into the war,
turning it into “another Korea”—a direct and intense war between the United
States and the PRC. The lesson of Korea—ignoring China’s warnings on the
grounds that Beijing was bluffing—loomed large in the minds of US lead-
ers and their advisors. They believed that the United States had inadvertently
triggered war with China in Korea by advancing US forces across the 38th
parallel and up to the Yalu River.^27 The strategy of gradual escalation would
allow the United States and the PRC to signal and understand one another,
thus avoiding “another Korea,” US leaders believed. The threat of Chinese
intervention thus gave Beijing leverage to influence the level of US violence
directed against the North. This would allow Beijing to play a very major, per-
haps decisive, role in Hanoi’s defeat of the United States. But there were other
reasons as well.
Another important reason for the US decision to wage such a highly lim-
ited war was the fact that the immense disparity of US and DRV power led
people to believe that there was simply no way Hanoi could defeat the United
States. US strength was so overwhelming that it could prevail even if used
poorly. A desire to wage war in a humane and economical way (killing as
few people as possible and using no more resources that necessary) was an
important part of the mix. For President Johnson, a desire to keep the war
small so as not to sidetrack his Great Society program of domestic reform was
a high-ranking reason. But the credible threat of Chinese entry into the con-
flict helped persuade Washington to fight a protracted war of attrition which
Hanoi could win.